/flac_batch_reencode

A Python script for batch re-encoding FLAC files

Primary LanguagePythonGNU General Public License v3.0GPL-3.0

FLAC Batch Re-encode

By Rui Pinheiro

A Python 3 script for batch parallel re-encoding of many FLAC files. This is useful to make sure that your whole FLAC library is using the latest version of the FLAC encoder, with maximum compression.

Usage

Place metaflac and flac in your search path, and then run:

reencode.py [-h] [-f <folder>] [-m <mask>] [-p <n_parallel>] [-v [--vendor-string <vendor>]] [--no-verify] [--flac <flac-path>] [--metaflac <metaflac-path>]

Parameter Description
-h --help
-f <folder> \ --folder <folder> Root folder path for recursive search (default: .).
-m <mask> / --mask <mask> File mask (default: *.flac).
-p / --parallel Maximum simultaneous encoder processes (default: max([CPU count]-1,1)).
--no-verify Do not verify output for encoding errors before overwriting original files. Faster, but in rare cases could result in corrupt files.
--flac <flac-path> Path to the flac executable (default: flac).

Implementation

This script first creates a list of all the files inside <folder>. If using -v, metaflac --show-vendor-tag <file> is compared with <vendor> in order to detect which files were encoded using different FLAC encoder versions. Once the list is created, each file is re-encoded using <flac-path> -s -V <file> --force --best. This uses the best possible compression level, and overwrites the input file only after the output is verified.

Note: The use of -V in the FLAC encoding parameters means that encoding takes longer, but any problems during encoding will be detected before the original file is overwritten. If you do not mind the (low) risk of file corruption due to something going wrong during the encoding process, and want it to complete faster, use --no-verify to omit the -V encoding parameter.

License

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.